


Through the Diamond Ring

by guava



Category: SF9 (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gangsters, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Based on the "Summer Breeze" MV and "9loryUS: Prologue", Bittersweet Ending, Blood and Violence, Embedded Images, Inseong lies and fellates a gun, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, POV Alternating, Prison, Youngbin has nipple piercings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:47:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25221139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guava/pseuds/guava
Summary: The summer fragrance makes me danceLost in this feelingThe summer fragrance makes me danceSet the moodAfter Inseong saves Youngbin from a senseless death in prison, he becomes the light in Youngbin's life. When Youngbin learns about Inseong's wish to join the side of his enemies, he gets fired up with a new ambition to take over his group that has treated him as dispensable and becomes the new head to keep Inseong by his side.What Youngbin doesn't know is that his devotion only feeds Inseong's guilt over covering up the truth that eats Inseong up inside.
Relationships: Kim Inseong/Kim Youngbin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

_**CIRCLE** _

* * *

Glory Circle was more than a gang. It was an empire--a hungry beast with many mouths that would swallow up every nook and cranny, every seat of power, within the country. Once upon a time, Youngbin had called it a family--his family--but not anymore, not since he had put a gun to the head or a knife to the ribs of the members that were like brothers and sisters to him.

Those above him hadn't threatened his life with a gun or a knife, but they might as well had through sending him to prison.

"Make that place ours," they had said. "Lead the others in the circle there to the top."

The prison was partially theirs. What wasn't theirs belonged to their rival group, who were currently using the grounds isolated from the rest of society as a holding pen for the most dangerous predator in their pack--the predator they called Hwiyoung who had single-handedly ripped through a building full of members of the circle and stained the walls red.

Compared to Hwiyoung, Youngbin was just a slave of the empire. He only had a track record for getting the job done and apart from that, there was nothing that set him apart from the rest of the circle. His masters thought it would make him invisible to Hwiyoung, but Youngbin knew better.

A predator's senses for seeking out prey would only get sharper when its hunting grounds were reduced to an enclosed space. In the narrow corridors and the fenced grounds, there was nowhere for Youngbin to run. No one to turn to with every man for himself in prison, in the rest of Youngbin's world, even among the younger inmates and circle members that Youngbin had devised plans with to protect themselves from being another number in Hwiyoung's body count.

When Youngbin sensed Hwiyoung stalking down the hallway towards him, he realised the one upside to Hwiyoung choosing him: that he hadn't chosen any of the others with more years ahead of them.

To stab or to get stabbed, shoot or get shot, fight or die. It was always one or the other for Youngbin ever since he lived inside the circle's grasp. He thought he would go down fighting with Hwiyoung, but another body came between them, appearing from out of nowhere to take the knife meant for Youngbin.

As Hwiyoung withdrew his blade, the man gasped and his eyes went wide. The blood from his open wound seeped through his dark blue prison uniform and all colour drained from his face. He gripped onto Youngbin's shoulders with both arms, keeping himself from falling to the floor. Youngbin stood still, not even noticing that Hwiyoung had walked away until much later.

And that was how Kim Inseong saved Youngbin's life, changing it forever.

_**SHADOW** _

* * *

Trying to get inside Hwiyoung's head, lying low to buy some time to figure out what was behind his gloomy stare that he often hid behind the curtain of his long wavy hair, had been miserable for Youngbin.

Getting to know Inseong was a breath of fresh air. Youngbin had half-dragged, half-carried Inseong to the infirmary and remained seated beside the bed that Inseong laid in after receiving medical care for his stab wound. Once Inseong woke up, Youngbin thanked him and they shook hands as they introduced themselves.

"You're the same age as me?" Inseong had said in disbelief. "But you have the face of a teenager!"

Others had said that to Youngbin before, but never as a compliment that was delivered with the sweetest smile.

Until Inseong fully recovered, Youngbin was going to stay by his side. It was harder than he thought as out in the yard, he watched Inseong walk past other inmates to where Hwiyoung was.

No ordinary inmate would on their own approach someone who had nearly killed them. Youngbin remained a safe distance away as he waited to see what Inseong would do and assess whether Inseong turned out to be daring or foolish. Hwiyoung didn't have a weapon in his hand, but he seemed bent to prove that his bare hands were lethal enough as he wrapped them around the stems of the bright pink flowers that had bloomed in one corner of the yard and ripped them out from the soil.

Youngbin heard Inseong say to Hwiyoung, "Summer won't come if you keep on doing that."

Hwiyoung stilled his hands. Remaining on his haunches and stooped over the flowers, he turned to stare at Inseong who loomed above him.

"I went to the winter zone, to avoid this hot summer," Hwiyoung said. "I went far away, the distance I can't reach you, so far. From a far distance, you've been keeping an eye on me?"

None of his words made sense, but what made less sense was Inseong's reply. "If you know how to avoid an entire season, can you teach me how?"

Youngbin couldn't hear the rest of the conversation as Hwiyoung followed Inseong to another corner of the yard. He stared at them, then at the scattering of pink petals on the ground. It was a prettier aftermath than what Hwiyoung usually left behind. And thanks to Inseong's intervention, there remained survivors among the flowers that Hwiyoung had laid his hands on.

Those flowers were the only plant that could grow among the bristling grass of the yard. Taeyang had cared for them since the start of his sentence, hoping to shower them with more love than he had ever received before saying goodbye to them in winter. If Hwiyoung had uprooted them all, he'd be half done with taking Taeyang out.

Youngbin could have done what his hyungnims in the circle did and tell his dongsaeng to get over attachments to whatever could be taken away from him that was not his own life. But since the damage wasn't as bad as it could have been, he asked Sanghyuk to keep Taeyang away from the yard while he and Chanhee buried the petals and the strewn leaves that were fast turning brown.

When they were let out again, Youngbin stationed himself close to the remaining flowers. Hwiyoung wasn't far from him, along with Inseong, and the two of them sat facing each other while they played a game to see who could sing the highest note.

"Hello, Cleopatra! The world's number one potato chip!"

Youngbin winced at Hwiyoung squeaking out the words, catching a soft 'tsk' as Chanhee joined him.

Looking pointedly at Inseong, Chanhee commented, "That guy's nuts. But he's doing us a favour by keeping the nutso we know away from us."

He didn't say anything else to Youngbin and just mouthed along to the words of the Cleopatra game.

It occurred to Youngbin that like him and Inseong, Chanhee and Hwiyoung were close in age. In another life, Chanhee could have met Hwiyoung in university and they'd play the Cleopatra game not in a prison but in a regular place like a bar with their friends from school. Chanhee might still see Hwiyoung as a nutso, but for harmless reasons like Hwiyoung's determination to imitate a siren.

"Hyung, what are you thinking about?" Chanhee asked.

"Nothing much," Youngbin replied. 

He kept his thoughts to himself as Chanhee wouldn't think much of having something in common with one of their worst enemies. He also didn't want to appear as a less reliable hyung by revealing his pointless ideas about the lives they could have lived.

Not far away from him, Inseong coughed from straining his throat and chuckled as he heard how raspy his voice had become. Hwiyoung kept up his stone cold stare and let him laugh. 

Youngbin could blame Inseong for being bright and playful, for influencing him to imagine how it would be possible to be cheerful in front of a killer, but he didn't.

_**BANG** _

* * *

Once a month, the former partner that caused Inseong to land in jail came to visit him. According to Inseong, after being stabbed in the back, being _literally_ stabbed in the back wasn't all that bad.

Over lunch in the canteen, Youngbin asked, "Then why are you still seeing that person?"

"Why not?" Inseong replied.

"You don't have any bad blood with him?"

Inseong shook his head. "If I were mad, that'd mean I think I'm above doing the same to him. But I'm not."

"Actually," he rested his hand on Youngbin's arm as he leaned closer to whisper, "It's good that I ended up here. There's no other way to have a peaceful, man to man talk with him."

As he looked up, Youngbin followed his gaze across the room towards the back of Hwiyoung.

"So you do have a reason to talk to him," Youngbin said. "And you're not just drawn to the people who've hurt you, like with your former partner."

Inseong laughed and asked, "Why would I be drawn to them?"

"To know them better for planning your revenge? To get them on your side so they'd hurt other people with you?"

"Your second guess is not that off the mark. Hold on, I'm really hungry."

Inseong had Youngbin wait as he used a spoon to scoop the food in his bowl into his mouth. The watery porridge with boiled chicken was their usual unappetizing fare, but he chewed heartily on it and took more spoonfuls as if he had figured out how to appreciate the meal's bland taste.

When his bowl was empty, Inseong continued, "To make up for screwing me over, my former partner is going to rope me into the group he's joined--Hwiyoung's group. If I manage to build some kind of close relationship with Hwiyoung, he'll bring me to...have you met Kim Seokwoo before?"

"No. I just know what he looks like."

Everyone in the Glory Circle was familiar with that name. Kim Seokwoo--the name of the head of the circle's rival group and the illegitimate son of a chaebol. With his tall and handsome appearance, his expensive cars and his bespoke suits, anyone would mistake him for a real elite. Most would miss the signs of his perverse drive to recreate the luxurious, money-fueled world that he had been barred from entering since birth and barricade this world of his with bodies stacked by trained assassins, common thugs and everyone in between.

"Kim Seokwoo wouldn't accept someone acquainted with a low-ranked member like my former partner," Inseong said. "But if that someone was a...friend of Hwiyoung, one of his most valued members, that'd be a different story. Anyway, being part of a powerful group would be a lot better than scrounging around for their leftover scraps and ending up back here."

To Youngbin, that would mean Inseong would become his enemy. There were two options to stop Inseong from becoming one of Kim Seokwoo's men: the first was to work together with Sanghyuk, Chanhee and Taeyang to take him out. The second was to--

"Inseong-ah, why don't you join us instead?"

At Youngbin's invitation that came out of left field, Inseong blinked. "Oh? Does the Glory Circle just take in anyone? What would your head think of me?"

"That won't matter," Youngbin said. "Because I'll be the one taking over."

_**SHOW** _

* * *

Most of the work needed to undo the hierarchy of the circle was done by the top dogs themselves. During Youngbin's absence, the system for ascending the ranks had been replaced with a game. Those who played to win would have to sneak into the prison to kill Hwiyoung in his sleep, disrupt the rival group and cement their position in the circle.

One hyungnim after another would follow Youngbin as he led the way around the grounds that he had come to know so well. Every one of them looked down on him and would mock him, spit on him, smack him around to warm up their fists and generally blame him for forcing them to come all the way down to do the job that Youngbin had failed to finish. Youngbin accepted all their curses and beatings, keeping to himself that if he had finished the job, they'd lose their chance to show off and take the credit.

After escorting them to Hwiyoung's cell, he stayed close to wait for them to drop dead. Hwiyoung never took too long even if his opponent was armed with a gun equipped with a silencer. Youngbin would then move with his dongsaengs to remove the corpse and other traces of the dead hyungnim's schemes. A few nights later, the same cycle would repeat, inevitably bringing Youngbin and the others back to act as Hwiyoung's garbage collectors.

The obsession of taking Hwiyoung's life had spread like a disease that infected the entire circle. Youngbin couldn't really understand why since no matter how deadly Hwiyoung was, he was just one member and not even his group's head. Whatever drove his hyungnims and former hyungnims, it allowed him to rally together other lower ranked members locked in with him to create a new order within the group once they got out.

As others began to support Youngbin's leadership, Inseong did too. He even volunteered to help out with disposing Hwiyoung's victims to make sure there were no loose ends. Once, the bloodied body they had to deal with groaned and showed signs of life until Inseong snapped his neck.

"I guess Hwiyoungie isn't in the mood tonight," Inseong said, lifting his long and elegant fingers that had become stained with fresh blood.

To keep Inseong from wiping them somewhere that would leave unchecked evidence, Youngbin licked them clean. He grabbed Inseong's wrist, catching Inseong's expression changing from surprise into amused delight as he put Inseong's fingers into his mouth. Beneath the iron landing on the buds of his tongue, he could taste the salt of Inseong's skin.

At their side, Sanghyuk shuddered and said, "Get a room, you two."

Inseong turned to him and asked, "Does that mean Youngbinnie can come over to ours, Lee Sekgwi?"

"Hell no! And don't call me that!"

Some reshuffling among the inmates had paired Inseong and Sanghyuk up as cellmates. 'Lee Sekgwi'--a combination of Sanghyuk's surname with 'sexy' and 'cute' that sounded a lot like a common vulgarity--was what Sanghyuk told Inseong to call him as a joke. His original plan was to flare up whenever Inseong said 'Lee Sekgwi' really quickly, using it as a pretense to accuse Inseong of being rude to him and smack Inseong around like what hyungnims do. But in the end, he couldn't bring himself to do so after hearing the fondness in Inseong's voice whenever Inseong called him 'Lee Sekgwi', as if Inseong was calling out to his own little brother.

Sanghyuk, Taeyang and Chanhee--they had all accepted Inseong as one of their own. When the day came for them to lay siege to the Glorious Hotel, the headquarters of their current head, Inseong was right there with them.

Shooting past Sanghyuk with the pistol in his hand, Inseong shouted, "Sekgwi, behind you!"

Sanghyuk turned to watch a body let go of a knife and crumple onto the plush red carpet of the hotel's corridor. As Inseong covered Sanghyuk, Youngbin covered Inseong with his own gun that he used to put two bullets in someone about to slam Inseong into the floor.

Among the chaos, Sanghyuk and Youngbin were separated from Inseong. While they caught their breath in a stairwell, Sanghyuk said, "That hyung...Inseong-hyung...is way too good with guns. Way too good for someone who was locked up as a common criminal."

Youngbin thought the same.

_**RING** _

* * *

Inseong's condition for becoming the new head's right-hand man was to reverse the deal he had with his former partner--a tall and angular man who looked like he could cut you with the bones jutting from under his skin. Baek Juho came down to the bar of the Glory Hotel not only to congratulate Inseong, but to also offer Youngbin strong reasons for why the members of the circle ought to let him defect to their side.

"I know more about Kim Seokwoo than most people in the world," Juho claimed. "We were childhood friends. We were even in a band together, once."

"Oh yeah?" Youngbin said. "What happened, you didn't want to keep the band going?"

"It's not possible to do so with Kim Seokwoo. You can't stand next to him, only in his shadow..."

Youngbin let Juho stay just so Inseong wouldn't leave with him. He had his own way of getting a clearer picture of what Juho had been doing in between screwing over Inseong and reconnecting with his childhood friend.

Alone, Youngbin left the hotel for a reunion with the defector that he knew.

Lee Jaeyoon had chosen to leave the circle to become one of Kim Seokwoo's suited men. The last time Youngbin saw Jaeyoon, he had his nose bashed in as he tried to curb Hwiyoung's rampage that would awaken an entire neighbourhood. When they met again in a booth of an unremarkable diner, Jaeyoon no longer had a straight nose bridge and no longer spoke in Satoori.

"It's just my luck that a plastic surgeon bungled this job," Jaeyoon sighed, talking about his nose in a Seoul accent that he had struggled to gain while working with Youngbin. "So what's up, hyung? Have you really taken over?"

From his lap, Youngbin raised his arm to show him the golden bracelet around his wrist that marked the most glorious member in the circle.

Jaeyoon whistled. Though he gave Youngbin a thumbs up, the slight narrowing of his eyes told Youngbin that he couldn't quite connect what he had known about Youngbin's lack of ambition with Youngbin's present self.

"I have something to ask you," Youngbin said. "What do you think of this man?"

He placed a photograph of Baek Juho before Jaeyoon.

"He's a cop," Jaeyoon said flatly.

"A dirty cop?"

"Undercover."

"Does he know that you know?"

Jaeyoon shrugged. "Who knows..."

"He was going to have his former partner join you guys. Did he say anything about that?"

"That former partner is most likely an undercover cop too," Jaeyoon pointed out, saying what Youngbin didn't want to hear. "You'd think they'd spread themselves out and infiltrate one group each. But hyung, did you have any idea what the circle was like when you were locked up? Like a snake eating its own ass. It would have fallen apart on its own if you hadn't decided to step up."

Youngbin nodded, only half-listening to Jaeyoon as he reframed the memories in his head--a memory of Inseong gunning down his enemies, not to protect him, but to save him for his last target. Before that, Inseong saying that Youngbin was too kind and handsome for a life of crime, perhaps to keep his hit list short. And before that, Inseong leaving his side to cross the prison yard towards Hwiyoung, choosing Hwiyoung over him.

"This guy," Youngbin pointed at Juho's picture, "and his former partner are at the Glorious Hotel now."

"Are you going to get rid of them?" Jaeyoon asked.

Youngbin shook his head. "After knowing who my enemies are, I have to keep them close."

"You've really changed, hyung," Jaeyoon replied with a smirk. "You used to hate getting betrayed the most. But now you're thinking like a leader." 

Along with the other perks of joining Kim Seokwoo's group, Jaeyoon was given his own sleek black Mercedes-Benz. Just as he unlocked his car, Youngbin said, "Can I ask you one more question?"

"If you ask a third, I'd have to kill you."

Youngbin took him at his word. "Why does Kim Seokwoo prize Hwiyoung so much?"

Putting his hands in his pocket, Jaeyoon looked down and hummed to himself as if he was weighing the pros and cons of explaining why.

Finally, he looked up and said, "That Hwiyoung...most of what comes out of his mouth don't make sense. But if you pretend to understand, he'd then talk about another world where you're loved for being beautiful inside and out, that is until he has more nonsense to say."

"So Kim Seokwoo wants to hear more about that world," Youngbin guessed.

Jaeyoon nodded.

"In that world, he's loved everywhere and by everyone. His face would be there--"--Jaeyoon stared across the street at a cardboard stand of a famous actor promoting the newest bubble tea from Gong Cha--"and there--"--he looked up at the side of a building with a large advertisement that featured an insanely good-looking male model with a tube of Klavuu face cream in his hand.

Jaeyoon continued, "Of course, any bootlicker can spin up Hwiyoung's so-called world. But I guess it hits different when it's from a guy who's not right in the head and capable of getting rid of any evidence that you are...unloved."

What Jaeyoon revealed about Kim Seokwoo made sense. Like him, Youngbin too wanted to live in a delusion.

He drove back to the hotel and headed straight for the bar. By the counter, Inseong was seated on a high stool and sipping on a glass of whiskey.

As he greeted Youngbin, the smile on his face faded. He got up, took Youngbin by the hand and dragged him to a darker corner of the room.

"There, that's better," Inseong said. "I can better admire your lovely face here where the bruises on it aren't as obvious."

He smiled again and let go of Youngbin.

"Inseong-ah," Youngbin said. "I..."

"Yes?"

Youngbin couldn't bring himself to hate Inseong's smile and the touch of Inseong's hand. Taking a deep breath, he clenched his fists as if he was about to punch Inseong. He wasn't going to do that, not tonight, not when he hadn't worked out what he was going to do after hating Inseong for real.

Not when he had yet to make Inseong his.

Before he had any second thoughts, he brought their lips together. As Inseong was taller than him, he had to crane his neck for their kiss. Maybe, this would cause Inseong to punch him first and Youngbin wouldn't have to land the first blow.

But then Inseong kissed him back. He held the back of Youngbin's neck and leaned down to deepen their kiss as if he had thought about doing that a million times. He didn't stop there as he backed Youngbin up against the wall and slid his hands down to Youngbin's waist, slotting his thigh between Youngbin's legs.

In a daze, Youngbin let Inseong lead him to his room. They lied together on the bed, skin to skin with their lips pressed together again and Youngbin lost himself in the bliss of holding Inseong and being held by Inseong.

After they were done, Youngbin wondered out loud, "Why does that feel so good?"

"Why? Because we're in love."

A hot tear dropped from the corner of Youngbin's eye. Youngbin hid his face behind his hands as he shed tear after tear and took deep breaths to ease the burning in his chest. When Inseong held him in his arms once more, his tears stopped, but his body wouldn't stop shaking.


	2. Chapter 2

_**SNAKE** _

* * *

Back in the prison yard, Hwiyoung revealed to Inseong his reason for ripping out the bright pink flowers: "The real flowers would only bloom once the fake ones are gone."

"Why aren't those real?" Inseong had replied, glancing at the remaining flowers looking forlorn among the mess of petals and leaves. "They have roots in the soil and green leaves and everything."

"Let me break away from your path. Something to nothing, I might ruin it all one day. A luxury, yet full of emptiness..."

When Juho next came to visit, the guards took him to a small and sparse room. There, Juho could sit across from Inseong at a table and share his progress for their mission without having to talk through a protective glass barrier like other visitors of regular inmates. Once it was Inseong's turn to talk, he reported everything from getting stabbed to his first talk with Hwiyoung.

"You don't have to get him to make sense," Juho said. "Just stay around him without questioning his ideas about a 'real world' and you'll stay alive."

"Got it," Inseong said. "I am a little curious about what is real for him."

He wasn't being sarcastic. In the sentences that Hwiyoung had strung together, there was a hint of artistry that was not unlike the way he wielded his weapons. He seemed to want his words to land like cuts and bullets, reshaping the world into what he'd like it to be. Inseong thought that as long as he treated that world as real, more real than the reality he could see and touch, Hwiyoung wouldn't see him as a 'fake one' that he had to blow apart.

"Only God and the devil knows what Hwiyoung sees as real. Oh, and if you don't have to, don't bother with risking your life to get closer to the Glory Circle members. They've mostly been crushed by Kim Seokwoo and his group except they don't know it yet."

"But I have to. The members in here are closely watching our Hwiyoung and if I'm often seen around him, they might think Kim Seokwoo sent me and target me too. I'm presenting myself as someone who's not on either side...yet."

"I see. Well, at least you pulled through," Juho said.

He bought Inseong's explanation that was mostly true. Inseong didn't think it was relevant for their mission to share that he had saved Kim Youngbin because it would be too pitiful, too predictable, to see Hwiyoung take the life of someone who had been more or less abandoned by those supposed to be on his side.

When Inseong saw Youngbin again, there was more light in Youngbin's eyes. As they got closer, Inseong saw that light in Youngbin expanding into a hot ball of flame until Youngbin and the fire became one to engulf the collapsing Glory Circle. 

Inseong was responsible for lighting that fire. Ever since he had shed blood in Youngbin's place, Youngbin had fallen for him. Inseong hoped that wasn't really the case--that Youngbin had not really done it all for him--and that even without his appearance in Youngbin's life, the surge of ambition in Youngbin would happen anyway.

In his cover, he could allow himself to admire the tattoos inked on Youngbin's bare chest as he stared down the barrel of the gun in Youngbin's hand and knelt on the carpeted floor of Youngbin's room. He had asked Youngbin to put the gun there, flush against his forehead, using his body to get Youngbin used to a total sense of power over another person's life.

What Youngbin was used to as a former peon was to shoot with no emotions attached. He had lost the thrill of holding a gun to a living person long ago and Inseong wanted to see whether he'd regain it in his new position. Then, Inseong would find out if what Youngbin felt for him was only a lust to control him that wasn't exactly love.

"Do you feel anything?" Inseong asked, looking up at Youngbin as he stroked his fingers down the gun's silver barrel.

Youngbin shook his head. "Nothing much."

"How about if I do this?"

Inseong curled his fingers around the barrel to bring it down to his mouth and wrap his lips around it. Youngbin sucked in his breath as he lifted his thumb to slowly, carefully, unlatch the gun's safety with a click that stirred up the desire pooling in Inseong's gut.

Inseong didn't care that he was enjoying himself too much and doing more than he needed to keep up his cover. The barrel of the gun was cool and hard, nothing like the smoothness and warmth of Youngbin's skin, yet he pursed his lips and sucked on it as if he was pleasuring Youngbin with his mouth. 

Without the barrel blocking his line of sight, he swept his eyes over Youngbin's three tattoos that were for self-expression rather than intimidation--the English words 'Shine Forever' down the left side of Youngbin's chest which was the meaning of Youngbin's name, a Latin quote on Youngbin's collarbone which was a reminder that 'greatness comes from small beginnings' and to its side, right below the curve of Youngbin's shoulder, a round clock which showed the time when Youngbin became the new head of the circle.

That clock just reminded Inseong that his time together with Youngbin was running out. He held onto the gun to get Youngbin to bring it deeper into his mouth, cutting off his own air until his eyes teared and the roman numerals and the hour and minute hand tattooed on Youngbin's shoulder turned blurry.

With a strong grip around his wrist, Youngbin forced him to let go of the gun to pull it out and toss it aside. He pushed Inseong down and knelt between Inseong's opened legs, and though Inseong didn't resist, he continued to hold Inseong down with his hand.

"Yes, yes," Inseong cried, urging Youngbin on even as Youngbin spat on the palm of his other hand to prepare to take him.

Later, feeling raw and bruised inside and out, Inseong thought he had got what he wanted.

But then Youngbin kissed Inseong's forehead, cheeks, and lips, and mumbled, "Sorry."

As they were about to sleep in Youngbin's bed, Youngbin brought out his precious golden bracelet to slip it on Inseong's wrist, letting it rest over the imprints of his fingers that he had left on Inseong's skin.

"Do you want the others to think that I've finished you off?" Inseong said.

"No," Youngbin replied, tracing his finger over the curve of the bracelet. "This is the best way to tell them, and everyone else, how important you are to me."

"I see..."

Inseong bent his wrist and pretended to be fascinated with sliding the bracelet up and down his darkening bruises. Youngbin didn't seem to mind that Inseong wasn't delighted with his incredible gift as he tilted Inseong's chin up with his hand to give Inseong another kiss.

Inseong closed his eyes and gave himself up to the bad dream that awaited him. In the darkness, the golden bracelet took on a life of its own as it slithered up his arm, hissing the awful truth that he had poisoned the spirit of the man who lied beside him.

_**GUN** _

* * *

Someone beside Inseong whispered, "Hyung."

The voice was too low to belong to Taeyang or Sanghyuk. Was it Chanhee?

Inseong lifted his head from his folded hands on the bar's countertop and squinted around the dark room.

"Everything has been ruined. We fight hard day in, day out. But I don't know what's wrong here, I don't know, I think I'm getting tired..."

Getting off the high stool, Inseong called out, "Hwiyoungie?"

He strained his ears. Though he couldn't hear signs of any other movement, he shouldn't assume that he was once again alone. Hwiyoung might be cloaking his presence, lying in wait.

In prison, he hadn't called Inseong "hyung" even once. He hadn't called Inseong anything.

Inseong sat back down on the stool and let the feeling of dread that Hwiyoung brought with him sink in.

The next day, after telling everyone about Hwiyoung sneaking into the hotel, Inseong was back at the bar. Juho joined him and they toasted a glass of red wine to each other for luck while waiting for something big to happen.

Sure enough, the door burst open as two visitors in well-tailored suits let themselves in. The man wearing the white blazer was Lee Jaeyoon, the former member of the circle from Busan that Younbin had told Inseong about, who was acting as bodyguard to the man in the traditional dark suit--Kim Seokwoo.

"Seokwoo-ya," Juho greeted with all feigned friendliness.

Kim Seokwoo didn't greet him back or turn any of his fine features towards him.

"Is there a bartender who can fix us a drink?" Jaeyoon asked.

"This bar hasn't been in operation for ages," Juho replied. "But let me get you that drink, on the house."

From behind the counter, Juho took the opened bottle that he and Inseong had poured their wine from. After Jaeyoon and Seokwoo took their seats at the table, Juho plonked the bottle before them and slung his arm over Seokwoo's shoulder, provoking the rival group's head to look at him.

Remaining where he was, Inseong sent a text to let the others know who had dropped by. They didn't take long to arrive and as Chanhee, Sanghyuk and Taeyang stood by the bar, Youngbin joined the gathering in the centre of the room.

With a smile, Youngbin asked, "What are you doing here?"

"My friend has spent a night in one of your rooms," Seokwoo replied. "We're here to pick him up."

"It wasn't that long ago when we lived with your friend in the same building. With him around, it's like old times," Youngbin said though neither he nor the others had found Hwiyoung in any of the hotel's rooms.

"You should have told us your friend is coming," Juho added. "We'd have treated him with greater hospitality."

As their small talk continued, Inseong caught the three of them drawing out their guns underneath the table. There was no better time or place for the two groups to clash--in the Glory Circle's territory and far away from the public.

For the third time that day, the door to the bar swung wide. The two groups' 'mutual friend' was there at last and in his hand, he held a large bouquet of long-stemmed white, yellow and orange flowers.

Inseong thought back to the first time Hwiyoung really spoke to him. Hwiyoung did like flowers, after all.

One by one, Hwiyoung let the flowers fall to reveal a gun and took aim at Inseong. The bullet whizzed past him, cracking the bracelet around his wrist into fragments of gold.

_**DANCE** _

* * *

"What's the matter, cold city guy?"

Hwiyoung narrowed his eyes and loosened his hold around Inseong's throat. Inseong smirked at having caught Hwiyoung off-guard with a callback to something Hwiyoung had said when he didn't think Inseong was listening.

"Hyung. I like you the most," Hwiyoung said. "I want to meet the real you."

He prodded the end of his gun up against Inseong's sternum. Just as Inseong shut his eyes, bracing for death, a deafening gunshot rang in his ear.

The shot struck Hwiyoung. He cried out, releasing Inseong and dropping him onto the floor. More shots followed as someone drew Hwiyoung away from Inseong. As Inseong struggled to get to his feet, he leaned against the wall of the hotel's corridor and pressed his palm over his ear to soothe the persistent ringing in his head. To see better, he wiped the back of his hand over the blood that had flown down from the side of his head.

He staggered a few steps towards a door that led to an open room. After a brief pause in the gunshots, one, then two decisive shots were fired before silence took over again.

Summoning his remaining strength, Inseong rushed to see what was left in the aftermath of those ominous shots. Sunlight shone through the slight parting of the curtains onto a pool of dark red blood, in the middle of which Youngbin lied face up.

Going down on his knees, Inseong sobbed, "Youngbin-ah..."

He placed his hand over the stain on Youngbin's shirt to feel for the opening in Youngbin's flesh. It was useless to try to stop the bleeding as the wound was too deep and too much blood was lost, but Inseong did it anyway to be close to Youngbin in Youngbin's last moments.

Softly, Youngbin said, "It's fine. Like this, I can save you the pain of telling me the truth."

Inseong blinked through hot tears and croaked, "What are you..."

"The truth. About you. You don't have to worry anymore...I love you."

The tightness in Inseong's chest was unbearable as Youngbin shut his eyes. Inseong gave him one last kiss, just in time to catch the whisp of his final breath.

Rewinding the part of their history between the takeover of the circle and the present, Inseong couldn't pinpoint a moment when he should have noticed that Youngbin knew who he really was. Youngbin might even have known all along. He might have thought that he knew the whole truth, but he would never know that Inseong loved him too.

Inseong was in love with the fire inside Youngbin, even if he hated himself for starting it for the wrong reasons. Love should have made him stop drawing out his lies longer than he should, but then he had thought, maybe it'd be fine if he didn't survive his mission. Maybe he would reach his natural end first before he had to hurt Youngbin with the truth.

The explosion of gunfire resounded throughout the hotel as the others continued fighting their separate battles. Whoever would end up alive or dead, Inseong was unlikely to find out.

A shadow was cast over him, blocking the sunlight.

Inseong stood up and turned to face Hwiyoung, saying, "So it's my turn now, huh?"

He wanted Hwiyoung to think that he had given up. Whether Hwiyoung believed him or not, he didn't check as he hurled himself at Hwiyoung to throw them both out the window.

The panes of glass shattered under their combined weight. It was a long drop from the floor they were on to the road below and as they fell, Inseong wished he could take in one more view of the blue sky that he was leaving behind.

* * *

_**GOLDEN SUMMER LIGHT** _

Just like that, Inseong found himself back at the bar.

"Inseong-ah."

It was Youngbin's voice. Inseong raised his head from the countertop to see Youngbin standing behind the counter and smiling fondly at him.

Inseong looked around the room to find the evidence of the wreckage from the fight between the circle and Kim Seokwoo's group and didn't find any. The tables and chairs weren't overturned and riddled with bullet holes, the glass of the windows were still intact and the potted fern in the corner remained upright.

He stood up to go behind the counter and put his hands on Youngbin's chest and sides. Underneath his palms, there were no signs of a fresh wound and not a single drop of blood seeped through Youngbin's shirt. He moved his hands to Youngbin's back and rubbed them up and down over the curve of Youngbin's shoulder blades as he secretly thanked the higher powers above that Hwiyoung coming over, the shootout afterwards and losing Youngbin was no more than another bad dream.

"These would have turned into wings..." He murmured.

Turning to face him, Youngbin laughed and asked, "What are you talking about?"

"When I saw you, I thought you had become an angel. I just dreamt that you saved me from being shot and bled to death in front of me. Then I died too." 

"Well, that...that wasn't a dream. That actually happened."

"For real!?" Inseong grasped Youngbin by the shoulders and said, "Then is this...is this the dream?"

"Nope." Youngbin shook his head. "I'm real. I was just waiting for you to wake up so we can leave this place together. The others--Sanghyuk, Taeyang, Chanhee, Juho and even Seokwoo and Jaeyoon--have already left for where we're going to go."

"How did you know where we're going to go?"

"Hwiyoung told me."

Being dead, holding Youngbin again for real and finding out that Youngbin had an actual conversation with Hwiyoung--all these were too much for Inseong to take in all at once. He grabbed the bottle of Jack Daniel's within his reach, uncapped it and took a big gulp. The comforting burn going down his throat told him that the whiskey was real and after putting the cap aside, he pressed the rim of the bottle against Youngbin's lips.

Youngbin took a sip and continued, "Hwiyoung went to that place before, but he was forced to go back to our world. The lines that he usually say are fragments of what he could remember from that place where he made some music that he had to leave behind. By the way, we can talk to him freely now and call him by his real name...it's 'Youngkyun'."

"Wow...that's..." Inseong took a deep breath and said, "I have no idea what to think about all that. I just know that I don't want to go back to a world without you."

"Me neither. I'd keep thinking about what I still like to do with you," Youngbin replied. "Talk about what your mission as an undercover cop actually involved, for one. And when that serious conversation is out of the way, I'd like to..."

He stopped himself there and looked down, his shyness keeping him from saying more.

Stroking his hands down Youngbin's sides and hugging Youngbin closer to him, Inseong said, "You can tell me. I'll do whatever you want, because I love you too."

There was no need to obscure his feelings anymore since they had left their old world behind. At his confession, Youngbin looked back at him with wide eyes. He kissed Youngbin once on the forehead and once on the lips, hoping to give Youngbin the courage to say what he wanted to say.

"I wanted to show you this..."

As Youngbin started unbuttoning his shirt, Inseong focused on the bare skin of Youngbin's chest coming into view. Out of habit, he glanced at the closed door of the bar to look out for intruders, and when he turned back to Youngbin, Youngbin had drawn his shirt apart to expose tiny glints of silver on his chest.

The shiny barbell piercings stood out against the brown circles of Youngbin's nipples. Surrounded by Youngbin's tattoos, they were like the cherry on top of a feast for the eyes. Inseong brushed his thumb over one piercing and felt Youngbin shudder, clearing away his doubts that he had indeed died and had set one foot into heaven.

"Did you get this done for me?" He asked.

"Kind of..." Youngbin said, biting his lower lip and holding onto Inseong's arms. "After getting multiple piercings on my ears, I became curious about these but never got them done back when I didn't have anyone to admire them. I thought you'd appreciate something unusual and different. Do you like them?"

"Yeah, I do. You know me so well."

The possibility that Youngbin might have got them done for another admirer pushed Inseong to fully show his appreciation. Taking the bottle of Jack Daniel's again, he poured what remained in it over Youngbin's chest before putting his lips to one of Youngbin's nipples to taste the booze, the metal of the piercing and Youngbin himself. As he tugged at the piercing with his teeth, he took pleasure in the moan that he drew out of Youngbin and Youngbin rocking his hips against him. Not caring if the walls of the bar in their new reality crumbled around them, he gave Youngbin's other nipple the same treatment.

Sometimes he imagined that if he had let Youngbin do as he pleased with him, back in prison when Youngbin first fell for him, Youngbin would get sick of him and lose the urge to compete with his rival group. But then Inseong might find another problem on his hands--that he'd go mad from trying to get sick of Youngbin.

* * *

At the rooftop of the hotel, a helicopter was waiting to take them away. It was like the modern version of the boat from Greek mythology that would come for people at the end of their life's journey. The whirring of the helicopter's blades through the air heightened Inseong's excitement as he boarded it first and stretched out his arm to let Youngbin take his hand.

As they were taken high up, closer to the blue sky which Inseong thought he'd never see again, they flew over an endless blanket of white clouds. The ground below was visible again when the helicopter began its descent, bringing them down to a field of brilliant green.

After they got off the helicopter, they sat on the soft grass to watch it fly into the distance. As if greeting them on their arrival, a gentle breeze swept over them.

Resting his head on Inseong's shoulder, Youngbin said, "It'll always be summer here."

"Of course," Inseong replied.

As long as Youngbin was with him, it would always be summer in his heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Inseong Day! 
> 
> As with my other fic "[Through the Bracelet](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22267765)", this fic is based on the latest title song. The title is a reference to the 'diamond ring effect' during an eclipse.
> 
> In the illustration of the eclipse, the words get more and more concrete in a clockwise direction as Youngbin and Inseong get closer to the final moment of truth. Each word is paired with the word on its diagonal opposite.  
> 
> 
> Some of Youngkyun's lines are taken from the lyrics of the songs posted on his Soundcloud: "Snow", "Empty" and "Sick of your shit".
> 
> I dared to include Inseong pouring booze on Youngbin's pierced nipples before moving on the afterlife only because FNC dared to include the lyrics "let's giddy up giddy up giddy up now" in a serious song.
> 
> For more BinSeong content, check out my [Twitter fan account](https://twitter.com/guava_otp93).


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